How mainstream has Anime become since the past decade?
- Thread starter Rurouni
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The medium itself is mainstream. There are so many western shows that do some kinda parody of the anime art style
There are very, very few individual anime that are mainstream.
There are very, very few individual anime that are mainstream.
I feel like the fact that most anime are locked (legally) to anime-only streaming services really hurts its chances of becoming mainstream. There are definitely certain series that are mainstream but the medium as a whole isn't.
i can think of it historically (like powerpuff girls, segments of South Park) but Animaniacs recently had one.
Although in my experience if you ask a bunch of older, "non-nerdy" people to decide between watching anime or playing a modern board game, they are more likely to go for the latter.
Id go as far as to say it's nearly or is mainstream
helps when you have famous actors and entertainers repping it
helps when you have famous actors and entertainers repping it
The act of just watching an anime is mainstream at this point. There's always going to be the people who are hardcore into it and stuff, but just casually watching an anime on Netflix or Hulu is pretty mainstream at this point. Then you have a select few titles that even people who aren't huge into anime watch and discuss, like My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan.
Both my kids (teens) and their friends watch a bunch of anime shows so anecdotally it's getting there I think.
Pretty damn mainstream considering you see anime sections in big box retailers.
Toonami's still doing a lot of carrying in 2021
Toonami's still doing a lot of carrying in 2021
Has it really grown in the last decade? There's new popular shows replacing old popular shows. But it seems like it was as popular a decade ago as it is now.
Its getting close, but I kinda wanna say its not yet at the levels it was during the early-mid 00s anime boom with DBZ and stuff?
I dunno, maybe that's just my nostalgia talking...
I dunno, maybe that's just my nostalgia talking...
Compared to 2010? It's totally mainstream now. Series trending worldwide and most even easily had #1 for hours? Check. Top 10 IMDB series? Yes, 2 of them. Even most of the top episodes are for animes (even ratings have already been adjusted because of vote manipulation? Check. Making tons of anime (Demon Slayer)? Check. People wear Uniqlo branded anime Shirts? Yeah more and more as far as I can see even in Germany now.
It's already mainstream.
It's already mainstream.
You're on to something. What is the 2020 equivalent of Akatsuki hoodies everywhere.
Absolutely not. Crunchyroll and the presence of simulcasts has increased the popularity of anime by quite a bit. More anime is made, more anime is shown globally, and the fans are increasing as new fans are made and the old ones don't "go" anywhere even though they might complain more.
Netflix invested billions into the creation of new shows a few years ago and anime was mentioned prominently as part of where that money would go, because it performs well for them. Unless the argument you're making is "anime was already popular", which...sure. But I'd say it's way more common now, to the point where you might have people who aren't even "anime fans" as much as "Yeah I really like Naruto or Attack on Titan" in the same sentence as Game of Thrones or a live-action series. They don't separate it.
Completely anecdotally... less than it used to be? Anime as a whole is more mainstream for sure, but I feel like individual shows like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto were more popular and well-known with kids than anything in the last decade.
Uhm yes. Netflix/Amazon already invested billions, certain series make tons of money in comparison to back then (even older stuff got some boost), then you have lots of streaming services in every country only for anime. 10 years ago it wasn't near the level we have now (with it even being common for many people and being normal).
And now it's Dragon Ball Super/Heroes and Boruto.
I feel like it's no more mainstream than in the early 00s. You have a handful of big shounen shows that every kid has at least heard of, but the rest of anime is still niche. It's apparently like this in Japan too. In the 90s it was Dragon Ball and maybe Sailor Moon, then later it was Naruto, now it's MHA and Kimetsu no Yaiba. Maybe One Piece and Bleach too.
This seems detached from reality tbh. Even just looking at how much more anime they make now compared to...jeez, the early 2000s? They aren't making more because they just love anime, it's because there's so many fucking weebs watching it.
Maybe, but I wonder if that counts as mainstream. And I wonder how much of it is due to just the distribution channels being different. Maybe more is simply being licensed.
In the 00s you had this huge boom but everything still had to be sold on DVD, and a few of those shows made it onto TV. Then you had a crash and then you had streaming which might've made it easier to release (license) a wider selection of shows. It probably also helped justify more sub-only releases compared to the DVD era when everything needed a dub.
In America it's definitely gotten basically just accepted as regular cartoons at this point. As far as I can tell anyway. People in their 30-40s who grew up with it anyway wear their shirts just as openly as the kids do and there don't seem to be any of those "ha ha Dragonball anymay" jokes like before. The styles get parodied and just flat out ripped off now just like everything else which is something.
The question asks if anime is more "mainstream" though, which is a different question than whether the industry is bigger. Yes, the industry is bigger. But is it more mainstream, i.e. would a random sampling of people on the street have heard about it?
I'm pretty confident that more people would have heard about the most popular anime from the 90's and early 00's (Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, obviously Pokémon, etc.) than the most popular anime in the past 15 years (Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, etc.)
dedicated streaming services and anime on mainstream streaming services have definitely grown in the past 10 years
More anime came out in Spring 2020 than came out in all of the year 2000. This isn't about licensing, this is about production.
I would not bet on this. Maybe Sword Art, even though Sword Art literally changed the anime industry. But Attack on Titan? My Hero? JoJo? I guess if you ask your grandma or whatever.
WTF is this, yo.
I feel like we wouldn't have seen stuff like this a decade ago
This thread reminds me that ERA knows fuck all about black culture.
Yeesh, don't need to hear another fogie story about renting Ninja Scroll on VHS.
I'm pretty confident that it's the exact opposite. Back then people didn't even know what the term anime means. It has changed a lot.
Not mainstream. I brought a ghibli movie over to watch with my sister's family and the 10 year old called it 'the chinese movie'.
Strictly speaking from an American standpoint, anime feels like it's at a similar place where it was in the late 90s/early 00s, ubiquitous and popular, but now it's constantly growing and expanding instead of the bubble bursting. I don't know how you measure it but the presence of streaming services has certainly made anime more accessible than ever.
Nah, definitely not. The late 2000s/early 2010s were a low point for the cultural awareness of anime in the west. It had mostly retreated to being a thing for nerds on the internet at that point.
Nah, definitely not. The late 2000s/early 2010s were a low point for the cultural awareness of anime in the west. It had mostly retreated to being a thing for nerds on the internet at that point.
Of course it's more mainstream. With streaming services having a large catalog of anime, it's much easier for people to watch and get into than it was 10 years ago.
But I think it's not reaching people in the mainstream. It's there, but I don't think kids are watching it. Probably still a culture of anime being considered weird and nerdy in schools or whatever.
I feel like we wouldn't have seen stuff like this a decade ago
i remember when someone said jojo wasn't popular a few weeks ago
I literally no know one who watches anime and I have quite a few nieces and nephews as well. Having said that it's clearly grown in popularity in the western world quite a bit.